


Once Upon a Dream

by endeni, KeeperofSeeds



Series: Scarlet Dreaming [1]
Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Audio Format: MP3, Audio Format: Streaming, M/M, Podfic, Podfic & Podficced Works, Podfic Length: 45-60 Minutes, Slow Burn, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000, some internalized homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-22
Updated: 2017-08-22
Packaged: 2018-12-06 08:46:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11597139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endeni/pseuds/endeni, https://archiveofourown.org/users/KeeperofSeeds/pseuds/KeeperofSeeds
Summary: In which Tony meets Steve earlier.





	Once Upon a Dream

**Author's Note:**

> A huge thank you to [IndigoNight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IndigoNight/pseuds/IndigoNight) for the invaluable support and wise advice - and of course to the awesome pod_together mods for their patience and for getting us in touch. <3

 

**Download** : [MP3](http://pod-together.parakaproductions.com/2017/pod%20together%20MCU%20Once%20Upon%20a%20Dream.mp3) (52.2 MBs) 

Right click and "Save As" or stream from link or from below 

**Length** : 00:57:03

 

**1\. TONY**

 

The first time it happens Tony had been… what, six, seven years old?

He remembers, with a kind of distant ache, his mom tucking him into bed. He remembers closing his eyes to sleep and waking up screaming in the middle of the night.

_You could have saved us._ Captain America’s dying voice, still imprinted into his mind. _Why didn't you do **more**? _

 

* * *

 

The dream comes again. And again. Never changing in its brutality.

Tony wakes up and his eyes are still filled with the image of dead bodies, of those enormous _things_ slowly but inexorably drifting down to Earth.

The dream- the _nightmare_ always comes with a sense of terror and impending menace, making him shake, making him want to throw up almost.

The feeling slowly disperses as he turns up the light and gets up (no point trying to fall back asleep, it never works after) but Captain America’s words keep haunting him through the day.

_Why didn't you do more?_

 

* * *

Tony spends the hours he isn't sleeping building things, trying to make the dark grip he can feel closing around his throat go away.

As he grows older, he’d hide away in his room for longer and longer stretches of time, at home or in whichever boarding school his dad had landed him into, only to then finally resurface and go the other extreme and losing himself into a haze of alcohol, drugs, beautiful girls. A few beautiful boys too. It didn’t matter what or who, so long as it let him stop thinking, even for a moment.

It's a vicious cycle: the more Tony tries to deal with the feelings of guilt and failure brought on by his recurring dream, the more he inevitably runs into his father’s disappointment and his mother's worried gaze.

 

* * *

 

One warm September morning, Ana Jarvis has a stroke.

Jarvis, _Edwin_ Jarvis, _Tony’s_ Jarvis, follows her a few days later.

At the funeral a woman in her seventies, dark hair streaked with white and smiling the lovely smile of someone who had once been a very beautiful girl, puts her hand on Tony's shoulder.

“He was a good man,” she simply says, looking down at Tony's tear-streaked face, “They loved each other very much.”

And then, almost in a whisper: “I always envied them that.”

 

* * *

 

Tony leans forward, until his mouth is almost brushing the microphone. “Hey, buddy, can you hear me?” he asks, “Who am I?”

On the screen the blinking cursor starts typing a response.

“Of course,” Tony reads, each letter giving Tony's heart a jolt. And then, words both appearing on screen and coming out of the speakers in a crisp British tone: “Hello, Sir.”

Tony’s smile grows so wide the stretch almost hurts.

 

* * *

 

And then, of course, comes the accident.

 

* * *

 

This time, Peggy Carter isn't at the funeral. Tony vaguely remembers his father saying her health had taken a turn for the worst this last month.

This time, he doesn't cry.

Tony stands ramrod straight, Rhodey on one side, Obadiah on the other, as if sheltering him from the crowd of businessmen, politicians, celebrities crowding the place. Even a few of his father’s old war buddies show up, Dum Dum Dugan’s customary hat still visible from a distance.

Tony watches as his parents are buried into the hard winter terrain and thinks of how the people he loves seem to leave him in pairs, thinks of the words he didn't say, that he should have said.

Obadiah gives a touching eulogy about Howard Stark, the great man, friend and example and inspiration for them all. It makes Tony irrationally angry.

Tony knows, if Peggy Carter had been there she wouldn't have-- well, he’s not really sure what she would have done or said but he's sure she wouldn't have allowed them to make Maria into an extension of Howard, Howard the great man.

Howard, the working alcoholic, Tony thinks. Was that why, he can’t help but wonder.

Fittingly, Tony passes the next day in a state of alcoholic stupor. He wakes up to a killing headache and a bewildering call from the captain of one of his father’s ships.

It takes him several seconds to make sense of what the man is actually trying to tell him.

 

 

 

**2\. STEVE**

 

“--you can’t go in,” Steve overhears, his super-soldier enhanced abilities allowing him to catch snatches of conversation even through the barrier of the heavy door.

“--it was me who found him, wasn’t it? Well, my ship anyway. So I really think I can. _Hell_ , I think it’s my _duty_ , to make sure he’s alright and all that.”

“Sir, _sir!_ ” Words seems to give way to scuffling sound, the familiar push and pull of bodies. An outraged “Hey, come on!” rings out.

“Look,” the first voice continues, slightly out of breath now, “it’s simple. If you don't want my lawyers and every journalist in the country rise such a stink--”

“Mr Stark,” comes a deep, authoritative voice from further away.

_Stark?_ Steve thinks. A shiver of trepidation and unease runs through him. But that didn’t sound-- It can’t be him.

“Oh, Deputy Director Fury, just the man I was looking for! I’m curious, does your boss _know_ what you’ve been doing here?”

The question is followed by a pregnant pause.

“Yeah, like I thought. So-”

A long-suffering sigh. “Stark. Come with me. Before anybody here actually decides to shoot you,” which is probably just a joking remark but delivered in such a way that Steve can feel himself going tense, hands closing into fists.

He gets up, thinking of forcing his way out of the small, aseptic room he found himself him in ( _How? Why?_ ), when the door opens and a young man walks in.

Dark hair, a clearly expensive suit, a pair of extravagant red-tinted sunglasses.

“So,” the man takes off his glasses, revealing warm brown eyes underlined by dark circles. Then, he looks at Steve with Howard’s dazzling grin, “wanna get out of here?”

 

* * *

 

Steve walks through the big, empty rooms of Stark mansion, too much space for anyone to live in alone.

He stops by a window, looking out at the New York skyline. The city he saved and that he can no longer recognize.

Steve takes a breath, trying to work against the pain.

He wonders what Bucky would have made of this strange new future, where cinema is in color and has a place inside everyone’s home, where an international call across the Atlantic Ocean takes no time at all (“Captain Rogers, she just came out surgery. We’ll let you know as soon as she wakes up.”). A future with no flying cars but where Howard’s son (“Call me Tony,” he’d said with a pained wince, “Mr Stark was my old man.”) built a robot who can talk to you through the walls of the house.

A future where they won the war. Where bombs that Howard helped build killed millions of innocent people.

Back on the plane, he thought he was going to die. He didn’t. He survived. He survived Howard, he survived _Bucky_ , he still _is_ surviving him, too much of a coward not to just keep on living.

It feels wrong. Unreal. Unacceptable. Part of himself keeps waiting to wake up from the nightmare he suddenly found himself in. (Just like part of himself can’t stop blaming himself for what happened, for not being able to catch him, for being the reason he was on that train at all.)

Except, Steve isn’t dreaming. Bucky is dead and there’s nothing for him to do, nothing that could ever stop it from being true.

But, _before_ , there was the war. Before, he had no time to think about it. Couldn’t stop himself from _feeling_ , wouldn’t even if he could, but he had no time to dwell on it, to think and analyze, not in the middle of the horrible thing that was the war, everything that was him turned up high and always alert, living in a state of constant emergency.

But now, he finds himself bereft and adrift, as if he was still lost at sea.

Steve didn’t die. The world just kept spinning around him, leaving him behind.

Like Peggy did, by necessity.

Peggy Carter, Director of SHIELD, still as beautiful as ever. She got married, had children and grandchildren. She’s lived her life without him, because Steve hadn't been there for her (like in the end he hadn't been for Bucky).

And it hurts. A raw, savage pain that takes his breath away, almost bends him in two.

She’s still alive, he tells himself. At least she got to _live_ and her life has been a beautiful one.

It’s going to have to be enough.

“Captain,” an electronic voice interrupts his thoughts, “a Sergeant Dugan here to see you. I took the liberty of letting him through the living room.”

“Thank you, JARVIS,” he replies.

He retraces his steps then, until he can see a familiar figure (a familiar hat) through the lovely stained glass doors of Tony’s living room.

Steve reaches for the handle and lets himself in.

On the other side, a man is standing in the middle of the room, facing the other way, a bowler hat over his head. At the creek of the door, he turns around.

His hair and mustaches have gone fully white and his skin is lined with age but he’s still the same man Steve once knew, the same man who once marched for a day and a half with a bullet lodged into his shoulder without letting anyone notice. That man is now staring at Steve and crying openly, big, silent tears rolling down his face.

Something breaks inside Steve at that sight, some fundamental barrier crashing down as Dum Dum covers the few remaining steps between them and pulls him into a fierce hug.

After a moment, Steve puts his own arms around him, feeling tears of his own spill onto his cheeks.

“ _Captain_. God, you fucking magnificent bastard,” Dum Dum says, voice choked with emotion, “Stark should have been here to see it.”

It’s at that moment that Steve realizes that, yes, despite everything, he may have just come home after all.

 

 

 

**3\. TONY**

 

“I’m sorry,” the Captain-- _Steve_ says, looking down at Howard’s comics collection, his brow furrowed in a complicated look of confusion, pain, reluctant fondness maybe. Tony watches as the other man bends down and takes a single volume in hand, still in its plastic cover.

Captain America is holding a Captain America comic, Tony thinks, a weird feeling squeezing at his heart.

“I'm sorry,” Steve repeats, “With all that happened, I realize I never said.”

“Thank you,” Tony says, leaning against his father’s desk, wondering if he’s supposed to say something to that effect in return. (Sorry you lost your whole world?)

Tony runs his eyes against his father’s studio, takes a breath.

“He never stopped looking, you know?” he says instead. “Howard. Went with him a few times too, when I was a kid.” At the time, it had seemed like a great adventure.

“I-- I can’t believe he died in a car accident. He was one of the best pilots I knew.”

“Yeah,” Tony says, his father's liquor cabinet an inescapable presence in his mind’s eye, sitting at the corner behind his back. “Yeah,” he says again.

A long silence hangs in the hair. Steve puts down the comic with careful attention and continues to quietly look around the room, at the slightly faded poster hanging on the far wall ( _Cap Salutes You For Buying War Bonds!_ ), at the red, white and blue prototype shield by the window.

“Thank you for the books,” Steve says, maybe trying for a lighter topic.

History books, yes. There’s been quite a lot of them around lately.

Are you enjoying them, Tony almost asks before berating himself. “You’re welcome,” he says. “How far along are you?”

“Just--- just the end of the war. The Manhattan project.”

“Ah,” Tony says, not a topic change after all.

In front of him, Steve is looking almost torn now. Like he finds it hard to reconcile the man he knew, the man who collected Captain America memorabilia and looked for his dead friend’s body for years, to Howard Stark, the Merchant of Death.

Tony can feel a mirthless smirk starting to stretch his lips. Well, he supposes the title is going to pass to him now, along with his everything else.

You should try to be more like Captain America, Howard used to say.

Tony never thought about it but maybe-- maybe Howard hadn't been saying that to Tony alone, maybe it was something he kept telling himself as well. Maybe he had nightmares keeping him awake at night too. Maybe the same ones Tony has. ( _Why didn’t you do more?_ ) God, that's a depressing thought.

Tony stares at Steve a moment longer before deliberately glancing away. The sight of him, alive and _here_ and looking hurt, looking disappointed is too much to bear for a moment.

 

* * *

 

“Tony,” comes a voice from the hallway. It’s Obadiah.

“In here, Obie,” Tony puts down the welding torch and perches his goggles over his head.

Obadiah comes in. “Good to see you busying yourself once more, my boy,” the man says with a pointed smirk, looking around the mess of the basement room that now works as Tony’s workshop.

“What?” Tony asks, confused.

“You know, you focusing on your work again. Also, there was a strapping young man that was having breakfast in your kitchen. I’m not criticizing, mind you,” he says with a salacious wink.

“What, no Obie, that’s not--” Tony can feel himself blush at Obi’s implications, at the thought that he and the Captain, and _Steve_ , could ever…

“I’m happy you’re feeling better,” Obie makes a vague gesture with his hands, “It's been a hard blow for everyone, but I can't imagine what it's been like for you, losing them, the weight of the company… You know, if you want we can still push back your take-over as COE a few more months. Just say the word, Tony,” he puts his hand on Tony’s shoulder then, squeezing slightly, “Important defense contracts are going to come in and I want to make sure you have all the time you need.”

“Yeah, thank you, Obie,” Tony says. He smiles, a sudden rush of fondness and gratefulness running through him. “I’m fine though, it won’t be necessary. In fact… you know what? Forget about those contracts, Obie.” He jumps up, suddenly impatient, and starts rolling out blueprints over his workbench.

“ _What?_ What are you saying? What’s this, Tony?”

Tony looks down at the blueprints.

“ _This_ “ he says, “is the future.”

He thinks of the first time he saw Steve, standing in that small SHIELD room, after spending so many nights seeing him dying in his arms. It felt... dangerously close to absolution.

“A mobile phone that uses touchscreen technology,” Tony continues, “I’m thinking of including a camera too. Hell, one day it’ll be a proper computer, one you can carry with you anywhere, just sitting on your palm.”

He thinks of Steve reading about the Manhattan project. He thinks of ‘Tony Stark, Merchant of Death’.

No, that’s not how he wants his own name to go down in history.

“I’m going to call it _Starkphone_ ,” he says.

 

 

 

**4\. STEVE**

 

“I just--” Tony’s eyes have gone cold and Steve realizes he must have offended him. “I just don’t want to impose, Tony,” Steve continues, trying and failing to articulate his thoughts. “You shouldn’t feel obliged to.”

He opens the door. Tony snorts as he walks through the living room.

“You’re not--” Tony starts to say.

Steve grabs him by the arm, interrupting him.

The house is quiet. Too quiet.

Steve looks at Tony, who's now wearing a frown of confusion.

“JARVIS,” Tony calls, his eyes still fixed on Steve. He doesn’t get an answer.

Out of the corner of his eye, Steve catches a glimpse of movement, a glint of metal. He intercepts the assailant before he can get to Tony, jostling him out of reach and receiving an elbow in the stomach in return. The blow takes his breath away for a moment.

_Strong_ , he thinks. _Fast._

“JARVIS!” Tony is shouting now.

“Tony, get away!” Steve warns as he retreats under the intruder’s assault. He takes hold of a chair, uses it to hit the other man. The wood of the chair shatters against the metal of his arm.

“JARVIS, emergency reboot!”

Steve dodges, punches, gets hit back. He manages to get a hold of the arm with both hands, tries for a kick. _Stay down_ , he thinks. _Just stay down._

Steve is shoved against the wall with inhuman force and speed.

The man brings a hand behind his back, as if retrieving--

Steve raises his right arm to protect himself with a shield he doesn’t have. He’s not fast enough to move out of the way, not this close.

_Bang. Bang. Bang._

Three shots in rapid succession, hitting him in the shoulder and arm.

“Steve!” Tone shouts.

Heat licks at Steve’s face: a sudden explosion of light and noise fills the air, rendering him blind and deaf.

_Grenade_ , Steve thinks. _Grenade of some kind._

A few seconds later, his vision clears.

“Sir?” he hears JARVIS’s voice pipe up again.

In front of him, the room is empty: their assailant his gone and so is Tony.

 

* * *

 

“Strong,” Steve says, as Dum Dum finishes bandaging him. “Fast. He had a metal arm.”

He tries to recall more details. Combat armor, a masked face.

He shakes his head.

“Tony’s still alive,” he says. Because that man wouldn’t have gone through the trouble of incapacitating Steve if didn’t have orders not to leave dead bodies behind. Because he could have killed Tony there and he didn’t.

Because Steve has to believe it's true. He didn’t save Bucky, wasn't in time for Howard but he isn't going to be late for Tony, he refuses to be.

Steve ignores that part of his brain that is busy berating himself for letting this happen, for believing a word without war to be a safe one and for letting his guard down, leaving his shield behind. He focuses instead on formulating a plan.

“Why?” He asks, looking up at Dum Dum’s weary face. “Why Tony? Why now? Who sent that guy?” Who _was_ that guy? Steve had never fought anyone like that before.

“I think we better find out, Cap.” Dum Dum replies, his voice grave. “Soon.”

“Captain, Sergeant, if I may,” JARVIS interjects and Steve looks up at the ceiling at the voice, like he always unconsciously does. “I believe there is someone in particular who stands to benefit by Mr Stark’s sudden disappearance. But, more important than that, I believe we have a means to track down Mr Stark’s location--”

On the desk by the far wall, a terminal powers on, a map displayed over the screen. As Steve looks, the map turns into some kind of building schematics, a blinking dot right in the middle of it.

That’s-- _Tony_ , Steve realizes with a jolt.

“What-- how are you doing this?” Steve asks.

“I’m afraid I took advantage of the United States Air Force geolocation program. You see, Captain, Howard Stark had a hand in building it." Steve and Dum Dum turn to look at each other. Something like cautious hope starts to form inside Steve’s chest.

“We can get there in a couple of hours,” Dum Dum says. He pointedly doesn’t look at Steve’s injury and refrains to mention that Steve should probably go be patched up by a professional first. “A couple of the boys can reach it in less than that, probably. I’ll ask them to bring a few friends along.”

Steve nods and deliberately returns the favor by failing to remark on Dum Dum’s age and general physical fitness.

He leans back from the desk, thinking he has to get his shield back from his room, his mind already halfway through the stairs.

“And, Cap--” Steve frowns at Dum Dum’s apologetic tone. “We’d better call SHIELD too."

"I know," Dum Dum adds, forestalling any eventual objections, "Fury is a goddamn son of a bitch, but we don’t know what’s in there, we could need backup.”

Steve sighs, nods.

“Yeah,” he says. “Do it.”

They can do this, Steve thinks.

 

* * *

 

In the end, it’s simple. It’s like before, during the war (a few days ago, decades past), going into enemy territory with his team, following the barest hint of a plan. Only this time Steve has a computer voice in his ear, seeing for him, guiding him through.

“Captain, please turn right and take the stairs. It appears that there used to be a bomb shelter downstairs, chances are that is where they are keeping Mr Stark.”

Steve still has no idea who “they” may be. There’s been no sign of the man with the metal arm either. So far, he’s only come across a few people (all wearing black, anonymous gear) and he’s had no problems incapacitating them.

“Captain,” JARVIS warns and Steve stops. He sees it, a small group of guards standing by the opposite corridor. Steve lifts his shield.

He takes them down, swiftly and silently.

It’s a couple more minutes before he reaches the basement door.

Steve leans back and kicks open the door.

On the other side, a bruised and battered Tony is blinking at him, at the sudden influx of light.

There’s a particular ugly bruise forming over his temple and dirt all over his face. Exposed wires run over his right wrist and his expensive wristwatch, culminating into what looks like a rudimentary and jury rigged weapon, held in the palm of Tony’s hand. A hand which is pointed at the open door, at Steve’s chest.

Steve raises his own hands in mock surrender, his heart constricting at the sight of Tony, breathing and alive in front of him, his warm brown eyes, the impossible long lashes and determined frown, those sinful plump lips of his.

Steve spends a precious moment wishing he had paper and pencil and the luxury to draw the man, the chance to keep that image with him forever. Just a moment, before kicking himself back into action, chasing those thoughts into the dark recesses of his mind, into the place where he keeps his thoughts about Bucky, the ones he always tries (tried) not to indulge in and yet he seems unable to fully let go of.

Peggy, he used to think of Peggy, her lovely smile, those eyes of hers, just as beautiful. Peggy Carter, still alive and just as unreachable.

_Not now_ , Steve tells himself _. Not here._

Steve shakes his head, lets the simple relief of seeing Tony again wash over him. Suddenly, he knows what he’s going to say.

“...wanna get out of here?”

Tony smiles, eyes crinkling with carefree laughter.

“God, _yes_.”

 

* * *

 

They meet their intruder on the way back up, the sound of distant shooting and JARVIS’ brief “--to the left--” the only warning.

They collide, shield and arm meeting in a hard clang and Steve pushes Tony back just as he leans on his shield with all his strength. He pushes until he hears something click and whirr wrong inside the mechanical arm and then he side-steps and charges forward again from a lower angle, shield stable and flush against his right side. Protecting his left, damaged one. The man knows that too: he twists away and hits Steve with a kick on the left side of his torso.

Steve groans, feeling wetness seep through his uniform. He raises his shield and lets the edge fall hard against the other man’s kneecap, sending him sprawling to the ground.

Before he can get back up again, the man’s hit by a shot of some kind, all light and fire. Steve watches his body jerk, sliding hard across the floor.

He turns back up to look at Tony, the device on his hand still pulsing faintly with light. Tony is staggering on his feet, overbalanced by the power of the shot and Steve has to nods in thanks, impressed and doubly thankful Tony refrained from shooting him earlier.

A noise of steps comes from the stairs. When Steve turns to check on the man with metal arm, he finds that he’s gone. Just like the last time.

Soon the place is filled with men and women in dark uniforms, a familiar eagle-like emblem on their chests and large guns in their hands. Among them walk Morita and Dum Dum and... a gray haired woman, face marked with age and fatigue, leaning heavily on a walking cane with one hand.

Steve’s heart almost stops.

He staggers back, walking right into Tony who lifts a arm to hold him steady, careless of the blood that must be seeping through his fingers.

All the times he tried to reach her, Steve thinks, of course she’d be the one to find him instead.

“ _Peggy_ ,” he whispers.

 

 

 

**5\. TONY**

 

Tony’s hammer hits the burning hot metal, again and again, molding it into shape.

“Sir, I don't believe this is an appropriate response.”

Tony doesn’t answer, he just keeps on working, his hand coming down again and again and again.

“Sir, I would at least urge you to opt for a safer approach to-- Sir? Sir, please--”

JARVIS tries a few more times before finally giving up.

Tony works, uninterrupted, until his arm is tired and his breath is coming out short.

“Tony,” comes another voice from the workshop’s door.

_Traitor_ , Tony thinks. He puts down his hammer.

“Cap,” Tony says, “did JARVIS call you?”

A hesitant smile. It’s irritatingly endearing.

“He’s concerned,” Steve says. “And so am I, Tony.”

Tony blinks, trying to steel himself, not to give in to the memories of Steve opening that door, a halo of light over his hair, light filling the whole room.

Tony turns around, his hands are shaking.

“Tony, I think it’s natural to want to defend yourself after an experience like this, just--” Steve stops and Tony doesn’t want to hear it from him any more that he wants to hear it from JARVIS and he opens his mouth to say, to shout as much.

“I’m sorry,” Steve says. “I should have stopped them.”

It’s not what Tony expected him to say.

“What?” He says after a moment. “What the hell are you talking about?”

He turns back, watches Steve wince.

“HYDRA. I should have stopped them a long time ago. I thought I did.” God, the pain in Steve’s voice. “But it was all for nothing. All the things that I did, that I lost, I--”

Tony snorts.

“That’s bullshit,” he finds himself saying, watching himself go as if from a distance, watching Steve’s eyes go wide. “ _This_ , this isn't on you. You didn't make Obadiah betray me, betray my parents, or send that fucking terminator to--”

He stops. His hands are shaking again.

The way Steve is looking at him-- Tony has to look away.

He takes a breath, then another.

“You know what’s the worst part?”

Steve frowns. “What--”

“All I can feel right now is... relief.”

Steve looks at him. “Tony?”

“I thought-- I was afraid it had been Howard’s fault. That he was drunk and just drove them off the road. I thought it was _my_ fault, for not stopping him, for not seeing--”

_(Why didn't you do more?)_

“Tony,” Steve interrupts. “Tony, it wasn’t your fault.”

“No,” Tony agrees. “And it wasn’t yours either. It was Obadiah’s. It was the Winter Soldier’s,” and he's almost shouting now, “It was  _HYDRA_. Which is why I need to be doing what I’m doing. To stop them.”

He looks up, right into Steve’s blue eyes.

“I know she asked you for help. I want to help too.”

Something complicated goes off into Steve’s eyes, like it hurts just to think about _her_ , like he can’t believe Tony offered.

After a moment, Steve nods. Slowly, he offers his hand, his expression serious, determined.

Tony stares at the hand for a moment, before grasping it with his own, shaking it.

“Okay,” Steve says. “We’re going to do this together.” He smiles then, bright and affectionate and Tony can’t help but smile back, relief washing through him.

But, wait.

“I thought you didn’t want to live here anymore,” Tony says, asks. Because he has to. Because one thing doesn't imply the other. “You said--” 

“Peggy,” Steve interrupts and this time Tony can’t hear pain or regret in his voice. “She told me. What you told Fury, that first day. Do you remember?”

Tony feels a traitor heat raise to his cheeks.

He does.

( _“Because my old man loved Cap, really did. And, crazy as it sound, unless Peggy Carter walks off cancer surgery, right now I’m probably the only family the man has left.”_ )

“Besides,” Steve continues, “I thought I ‘shouldn’t be stupid’ and that you had ‘enough room and money to house a dozen super soldiers’.” He smiles again and for a moment Tony is almost overcome by the desire to kiss that mouth.

“Sir,” JARVIS’s voice, looking after him even when the only things he needs protecting from are his own thoughts.

“Yes, J?” Tony's voice sounds rough to his own ears.

“Apologies, Sir. Director Carter on the phone for the Captain. She wanted to inform him that they have a new lead.”

“Right,” Tony says, looking at Steve's bright eyes. “Let me get my suit.”


End file.
